Assorted Thoughts, Mostly Jelly Centers

"Come, I will share with you my knowledge -- or at least the memory of what I once knew."


"Whatever you put aside to seek happiness, remember where you put it."


"How, child, do I know where you're headed?  Because I'm there, and I can see you coming."


"When you think about it, what could be more deceptive than a Ponzi scheme of the people, by the people and for the people."


"Every pet owner is part paranoid, seeking a companion who cannot possibly be part of the plot."


"Say what you want about aging, it's still the only way to have old friends."


"There are people who live their whole lives on the default settings, never realizing you can customize."


"In the triumph of proving some critic wrong, we sometimes forget the friend we proved right."


"What do I ask of life except the chance to live yesterday over again and tomorrow in advance."


I have this friend Les, who's written his autobiography and wants me to suggest a title.  I'm thinking, The Road Les Traveled By.  


"Each day learn something new, and just as important, relearn something old."


"In the happiest of our childhood memories, our parents were happy, too."


"Everyone who succeeds writes a book, so if I ever by some wild chance succeed, I'm going to write a book on how to succeed by some wild chance."


"It's hard to make up your bed while you're still sleeping in it. Hard to make up your mind for the same reason."


"Meanwhile, sales of my book, Work Your Tail Off and Succeed, have reached single digits."


~~ Robert Brault

A Stray Cosmic Thought

To explain the universe, science first assumed the existence of an unseen phenomenon called dark matter.  Finding the explanation insufficient, it posited a second unseen phenomenon called dark energy.  Still unsatisfied, it hypothesized a third unseen phenomenon called dark flow. Relying on these three mysteries, science is now satisfied with its explanation. Here is a thought. We have known, since Einstein, that matter and energy are really the same thing in two different forms.  Might it now be proved that flow, as in dark flow, is a third form of the same thing?  And might science thus be discovering that the binding force of the universe is a Trinity?  And might a religious believer say, "No kidding."


~~ Robert Brault

Thoughts on Hope, Happiness and Family

"There are moments every day in family life that in and of themselves would suffice as the whole purpose of the enterprise."


"Do not ask that your kids live up to your expectations. Let your kids be who they are, and your expectations will be in breathless pursuit."


"It is the first purpose of hope to make hopelessness bearable."


"Hope is a path through a flowering meadow. One doesn't require that it lead anywhere."


"The key to compassion is to realize that everyone you meet is a set of extenuating circumstances."


"The secret to happiness is to put the burden of proof on unhappiness."


"You begin to find what you're looking for in life when you begin to look for what you're finding."


"Which of us has ever cast our eyes from another's child to our own without changing lens?"


"If you knew that hope and despair were paths to the same destination, which would you choose?"


"Happiness is directly proportionate to the amount of hope you accept as truth."


"If you cannot be impartial, then try to extend each day the number of people on whose behalf you are biased."


"In the courtroom of one's parents, there is seldom a presumption of innocence but always mitigating circumstances."


~~ Robert Brault

Thanksgiving Notes and Then Some

Thanksgiving Notes

This year we tossed a coin, and the kids will sit at the dining room table and the adults at the card table in the living room.


A secret I will take to the grave is how I carve the dark meat in slices and the white meat in chunks.


My wife says that this year she'll carve the turkey and I can carve the gelatin mold.


You can be humbled by praise, or you can be humbled by carrying in the turkey and having it slide off the plate into your mother-in-law's lap.


I've read where the body cells completely replace themselves every seven years. So at my age, I've already been ten different people, all with a tendency to forget the rolls.


This year we're having the words. "There's more gravy" stitched right on the napkins.


At our house we have a rule that the cook has to come to the table so we can all get started, then she can go back to the kitchen.


This year we've designated Aunt Viv to say grace and Uncle Howie to say "Let's eat."


As usual, we've invited an odd number of people, so there won't be a tie vote on whether to have the pies right after dinner or wait an hour.


As always, the pie-serving honors will go to Cousin Marian, who cuts the biggest slivers.


Speaking for myself, when I ask for a sliver of mince pie, I do mean a sliver.


I suppose I will die never knowing what pumpkin pie tastes like when you have room for it.


What greater blessings to give thanks for at a family gathering than the family and the gathering.



And Then Some...


"To ask why the front page always reports bad news is like asking why the obituaries always report somebody dying."


"Am I so unusual?  I mean, if you had an imaginary friend who died, wouldn't you blame God?"


"I was the other day unaccountably sad and wondered if perhaps some secret admirer had passed away."


~~ Robert Brault

Not As Humbling As You Might Think

This morning I googled my signature saying, “Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” I came up with 303,000 hits. By changing a word or two, I came up with another 100,000.

Then I got the idea of googling The Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Don’t be alarmed. The Golden Rule won out, getting 567,000 hits.

But I googled many other common sayings, including “A stitch in time saves nine”, “A rolling stone gathers no moss”, “A penny saved is a penny earned,” – plus each of the Ten Commandments. Turns out that “Enjoy the little things…” beats them all. It also beats out everything I googled by Oscar Wilde, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mark Twain and a fellow named Confucius.

What does it prove? Well, not much. As I like to tell my buddy when I beat him at golf, “Doesn’t prove anything except that I’m a little better golfer than you are.” So the above doesn’t prove anything, I guess, except that I’m a little cleverer than Mark Twain and a little wiser than Confucius.

Needless to say, all this is very humbling, although not as humbling as whiffing on the first tee, say.

As to comparing myself to the author of the Ten Commandments, I think not. I had ancestors who did that once, and it turned out badly.

~~ Robert Brault

Some Wit, Some Whimsy

"How often we choose the safe path only to discover that it was not one of the choices."


"Each day is an opportunity to travel back into tomorrow's past and change it."


"Sometimes I imagine a get-together where I introduce my family to my blogger friends and my blogger friends introduce my family to me."


"As an optimist I accept the likelihood that I will someday die, although I've noted that no person now living ever has."


"The human life span is an unresolved issue between God and garlic."


"It is not happiness until you capture it and store it out of the reach of time."


"In assembling the universal jigsaw puzzle, man has yet to find a side piece."


"If you can compose it within a frame, you can understand it."


"Skepticism is a religion very rich in evangelists but very short on saviors."


"There's a book in all of us, which, in most cases, is a good place for it."


"Nobody has a stroke of dumb luck without thinking they can have a stroke of dumber luck."


"There is in most people an unwillingness to stake it all until they've lost it all."


"Life is a brief opportunity to do something prehumously."


"As to my funeral plans, I've instructed my wife to lay me out smiling so people will know I'm dead."


"I, for one, will deplore the demise of the morning newspaper.  For one thing, how will you know you only slept one night?"


"The best laid plans of mice and men do not anticipate a glance across a crowded room."


"If your life were a movie, which Oscar would you most like to win -- best actor or best film?"


~~ Robert Brault